The following discussion clip is from the Occupy Wall Street demand discussion list.
Here is the lead in post from dyck:
We are the people AND the government. Think about how, if many of us are always thinking about ourselves, that would likely translate to those who we’ve elected. This rationale extends to greed, larceny, violence and all the rest, no? Aren’t we what we see in others? I expect delusion or illusion about ourselves comes in here somewhere.
We keep making life more complicated with our laws and our anti-laws, regulation to essentially control ‘others’ (not ourselves). But, what are we trying to control…. our lack of character or self-control, our ignorance, our fears, our nature?
Nanook:
These are important observations. So? What’s the answer? Actually, it’s a VERY COMPLEX question. I spent 30 years looking before finally stumbling on a bunch of answers. In short, human nature did not evolve to live in highly populated societies. We evolved to survive in harsh conditions as hunter-gatherers. When we are brought together, our biological instincts get very confused. We fall back into a primitive small clan mentality. As a general rule, we tend to treat each other very badly. The ancient philosophers understood this. They called it the “seven deadly sins”. This term has nothing to do with religion. The word “sin” here means “missing the mark” or goal. During good times, in isolated groups, and with good leaders, we may get along OK. But as soon as the environment (physical, economic, or cultural) brings hardship, the party is over. THAT IS WHAT THE WORLD IS NOW FACING.
SO! What’s my point? My point is, society needs to understand the behaviors described by the Seven Deadly Sins, and face up to the fact that they are PART of our HUMAN NATURE. We need to face up to how they mold human culture, and what needs to be done to address this nature. It’s a much bigger problem than anyone expects. But if we don’t do it, we will be solving all the wrong problems about human interactions, and keep coming up with the wrong answers. And to be specific, NONE of the explanations here are related to any religion. This is human psychology.
These are discussed on my website: http://a3society.org under 7 Deadly Sins. You can also read a lot about this in my books. You can download many chapters from the books for free.
